The field of the invention relates generally to monitoring systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods for use in determining hazardous charging conditions.
At least some known vessels, such as aircrafts and spacecrafts, may encounter surface and/or internal charging from a surrounding atmospheric or space environment. For example, surface charging may result from charge buildup with dielectric materials located on the exterior surfaces of the vessel. Such surface and internal charging may create operational risks to the vessel, as the induced charging may be from hundreds to several thousand volts. Moreover, electromagnetic emissions resulting from the abrupt electrical discharge of such materials can be large enough to disrupt and even damage electronic equipment that may be onboard the vessel. Accordingly, it is important to detect or at least characterize such hazardous charging conditions.
At least some known scientific payloads include instruments designed to measure charge buildup and/or detect electrostatic discharge events. However, such instruments are generally large in size and can be quite expensive to use. As a result, the use of such instruments may be limited. Instead, anomaly resolution and adjustments to at least some known spacecraft operations are based on environmental measurements from a few spacecrafts that have specialized sensors. However, such measurements have substantially large attendant uncertainties because of the highly localized nature of the charging environment. Moreover, while at least some known systems are able to detect electrostatic discharge transients, known systems do not include a transient waveform recorder that can be used to identify the source or type of electromagnetic interference detected.